Social Impact Theory

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The social impact theory (English: social impact " social influence ") was set up in 1981 by the American social psychologist Bibb Latané . It describes the conditions under which a person is most likely to follow the normative influence of a group . The influence is determined by the strength and immediacy of the group and the number of group members.

The social impact theory developed from the joint research of Bibb Latané and John M. Darley (1970) on the concept of responsibility diffusion . This means that when other people are present, each individual's subjective sense of responsibility decreases.

theory

The social impact theory establishes certain conditions under which a person is most likely to give in to the normative influence of a group.

The influence ( I mpact) that a group has on an individual results from:

  1. Strength ( S trength): importance of the group for the individual
  2. Immediacy ( I mmediacy): spatial and temporal proximity of the group to the individual
  3. Number ( N umber): Number of group members

These three variables are represented as a multiplicative function:

To illustrate his theory, Latané also calls it the “Light bulb theory of social relations” (English: light bulb “light bulb”). He draws the comparison to light that shines on a surface. This can be seen as a multiplication of power or luminosity, proximity to the surface and number of light sources .

“This can be called a light bulb theory of social relations: As the amount of light falling on a surface is a multiplicative function of the wattage or intensity of the light bulbs shining on the surface, their closeness to the surface, and the number of bulbs, so the impact experienced by an individual is a multiplicative function of the strength, immediacy, and number of people affecting him or her. "

- Bibb Latané: The Psychology of Social Impact , p. 344.

The influence of a group on an individual is great when it is perceived as strong and immediate. The individual is more likely to conform to the group than if the group is perceived as insignificant and spatially or temporally distant.

Experiments by the social psychologist Solomon E. Asch on conformity have shown that although this increases with the number of members, it hardly changes from a group size of more than three people. For the influence of the group on the individual, it makes a greater difference if too few people are added than if the group is already large and is expanded by one member. The larger the group, the smaller the influence of each new member on the individual.

Research examples

In 1988, the social psychologist Christian S. Crandall observed the effects of group influences on individual eating behavior in student associations during an academic year. In the first union, it was the norm to have as many binge eating as possible. In the second, the norm was a medium number, i.e. neither too frequent nor too rare binge eating. The more a member conformed to the norm, the more popular it was. The results of the research showed that student associations have a great influence on their members. They usually have a large number of members (number), are very popular (strength) and are characterized by frequent or large spatial proximity of their members to one another (immediacy).

In a 1993 study by Martin Fishbein and colleagues, homosexual men who lived in communities with a lot of AIDS education felt more pressured to avoid risky sexual behavior than men from communities where there was little AIDS education.

In another 1992 study by Robert W. Winslow and colleagues, heterosexual students indicated that their choices to have unprotected sex depended heavily on the norms within their circle of friends.

Further development

The social impact theory refers to the social influence that a group exerts on an individual, but leaves out the extent to which the individual himself exerts an influence on his social environment. Therefore, in 1996 Latané presented a further development of his theory: the Dynamic Social Impact Theory . It is based on the assumption that society is a complex system made up of interacting individuals who influence one another. This complex system has four different forms of self-regulation that result from social influence:

  1. Consolidation: reduction of diversity
  2. Clustering: spatial self-organization
  3. Correlation: growing relationships
  4. Continuing diversity: continued diversity

literature

  • Elliot Aronson, Robin M. Akert, Timothy D. Wilson: Social Psychology. (6th ed.). Pearson Studium, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8273-7359-5 , pp. 252-253.
  • Michael A. Hogg (Eds.), Joel Cooper: The Sage Handbook of Social Psychology. Concise Student Edition. Sage Publications, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4129-4535-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Bibb Latané: The Psychology of Social Impact. In: American Psychologist . Volume 36, No. 4, 1981, doi: 10.1037 / 0003-066X.36.4.343 , pp. 343-356.
  2. ↑ a b c Aronson, Akert, Wilson 2008, pp. 252f.
  3. ↑ Solomon E. Asch: Opinions and social pressure. In: Scientific American. Volume 193, No. 5, 1955, doi: 10.1038 / scientificamerican1155-31 , pp. 31-35.
  4. ^ Christian S. Crandall: Social contagion of binge eating. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Volume 55, No. 4, 1988, doi: 10.1037 / 0022-3514.55.4.588 , pp. 588-598.
  5. ↑ Martin Fishbein, Darius KS Chan, Kevin O'Reilly, Dan Schnell, Robert Wood, Carolyn Beeker, David. Cohn: Factors influencing gay men's attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions with respect to performing sexual behaviors. In: Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Volume 23, No. 6, 1993, doi: 10.1111 / j.1559-1816.1993.tb01096.x , pp. 417-438. Quoted from Aronson, Akert, Wilson 2008, pp. 252f.
  6. ^ Robert W. Winslow, Louis R. Franzini, Jimmy Hwang: Perceived peer norms, casual sex, and aids risk prevention. In: Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Volume 22, No. 23, 1992, doi: 10.1111 / j.1559-1816.1992.tb00978.x , pp. 1809-1827.
  7. ^ Bibb Latané: Dynamic social impact. The creation of culture by communication. In: Journal of Communication. Volume 46, No. 4, 1996, doi: 10.1111 / j.1460-2466.1996.tb01501.x , pp. 13-25.
  8. ↑ Bibb Latané. (No longer available online.) In: Center for Human Science. Archived from the original on January 10, 2016 ; accessed on January 14, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.humanscience.org
  9. ↑ Bibb Latané, Martin J. Bourgeois: Dynamic social impact and the consolidation, clustering, correlation, and continuing diversity of culture. In: Michael A. Hogg, Scott Tindale (Eds.): Handbook of Social Psychology. Group processes. Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 9780631208655 , pp. 235-258.